Coastal Sustainability: Learnings from MFF India

Thu, 20 Sep 2012

Many of us will never have to stand at lands end, watching the incoming tide, and wonder how to feed and protect our families. But more than 20 million people in India, living along its coasts and depending on a delicate balance between ocean and land ecologies, are doing exactly that today

Photo: MFF India

Mobilizing change cannot come without the active participation of all stakeholders that contribute to, and can benefit from, changes in practices that focus on living within our planetary boundaries. The MFF (India) programme has a strong and conscious focus on active participation in action interventions, a process which is intrinsically catalytic; wherein results obtained in the short-term can be translated into more institutionalized processes.

In our work between 2008-2011, MFF (India) not only facilitated informed change, but also ensured that agents of change were localized. The Small Grant projects were seen as a way to support local actions and provide immediate and long-term benefits. In addition to the small-grants framework, the selection of strong and established project partners increased the potential that the work would extend beyond the project period. The results of the work done by MFF (India) have been very positive and it is clear that the small grants framework can act as catalytic seed investment for sustainable and scalable change.

The work accomplished by MFF India till 2011 has been documented in Coastal Sustainability: Learnings from MFF India.The book will be released at CBD COP 11 in Hyderabad in October 2012